


He Was There

by williamastankova



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-10
Updated: 2018-06-10
Packaged: 2019-05-20 15:09:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14896883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/williamastankova/pseuds/williamastankova
Summary: Sometimes, everybody needs somebody to rely on. Sometimes, it's the only way we make it through hard times.





	He Was There

Sansa had always felt she needed a person to lean on. When she was younger, she thought this foolish - shameful - that she couldn't handle herself. While she fully intended to be a lady one day, ladies were strong, as she had learned from her own mother. Whilst in King's Landing, she had learned the same thing from Cersei: even if she was virtually the polar opposite of her mother, and she was wicked, she was strong, and didn't depend on anybody, apparently - not even King Robert. She loved, as did every woman and man Sansa had come across in her short years, albeit only few. Sansa, in this sense, admired her, and hoped she would make Joffrey proud when they were wedded with her independence. She sighed to herself wistfully, going back to imagining their beautiful golden-haired sons, and prayed for the wedding to come soon.

However, after the siege befell King's Landing and she had come to face the fact she was now well and truly alone, for Shae may die as easily as any other person she had known, and the Lannisters were not to be doted on. When returning to her quarters, she had come across the Hound. He did, she noted, reek of wet dog when he was afraid, as the rumours had said. Without many words spared to her, he announced and took his leave, and she was left to slip into the gold-filled pit, where it seemed she would remain forever. The Starks of King's Landing just didn't quite have a ring to it, she resolved, sadly, and then quickly corrected that it was to be the Stark of Winterfell, as both her sister and father had left her alone. She shook in horror. Her nights were so often spent this way now, following the murder of her father, the various beatings she endured, and losing track of her little sister.

Tonight, though, she found herself unable to wake, trapped in a cycle of watching the blade swipe her father's head off of his shoulders, watching the blood spit from the open vessels; she saw herself alone with Joffrey, strung up as Ros had been, her hands tied to his bed and her feet dangling helplessly, and he was pointing his crossbow at her and jeering. He tainted her, then was suddenly shaking her father's decapitated head at her, and then dropped it. He focused both of his hands on the weapon, loading it and drawing its string back, then looking through to aim, looking into her eyes as he let the arrow fly. As the arrow hit, she screamed, and then saw Arya. On the floor, at her feet, was the little girl, helpless and bleeding out, crying at Sansa to do something - to help her. Sansa screamed back, having felt her hands were still tied, that she couldn't, that she was sorry, that somebody would help them, somebody trustworthy. At this moment, three men appeared from thin air, and laughed and gestured to the flailing, bleeding child with their bottles of ale. As they approached, Sansa felt sick, and threw up to the side, unable to wipe her mouth clean and unable to understand her fright until she recognised the men as they drew closer. They were the rapers that had had her on the floor during the riot, when the Hound had saved her. They dropped their glass, letting it shatter and Sansa saw some of the shards fly onto Arya, and one into her eye, and she wept, crying out for them to leave her alone. This did nothing as the animals couldn't hear her, or at the very least chose not to listen, as they pinned down a fighting, squirming Arya, as they had with Sansa.

Finding herself squealing all sorts of things, Sansa came to her last hope. As loudly as possible, she yelled out for the Hound, and immediately the brute was there. He towered above the men, and without hesitation he dragged the one prying apart Arya's legs back and snapped his neck with barbaric ease. The next man turned around to face him, and as soon as he did the Hound's sword was driven through his stomach, then removed as he left him to bleed out on the cold slabs. The third man tried to run, but accidentally slipped in his drunked haze, and was flipped over and stomped to death by the Hound. Once the three rapers were dealt with, he turned back to the two Stark girls, and reached up to Sansa's ties and released her. Her wrists burned, and her throat seared hot with the screaming, but her eyes remained firmly fixated on the man before her as he leaned down to roughly bring her sister up. His touches could and would never be soft, Sansa had always thought, and he would always be a brutish, cruel dog, even if he had saved her sister. She could not thank him after he had failed to intervene when her father's head was called for. Lord Stark had always been respectful to him, which was more than he ever deserved, and he repayed him by watching him being wrongfully convicted and murdered for a crime he didn't commit. Instead of thanking him, Sansa drew her attention to Arya as she ran away, disappearing into the fog of her nightmare. When she was out of her sight, Sansa turned back to the Hound, remaining firm that she would not thank him, for he had done one good deed in the place of a thousand bad ones, and watched his face drop slightly, but she listened as he murmured, "you're welcome, little bird." and then vanished in his place, leaving her alone, and then she awoke, shaking and trembling still, but alive, at least for another day.

* * *

 

Bought and sold, like a common crop or worthless jewel. Sansa, half-Tully and half-Stark, had never purposefully placed herself above people, and had tried - especially since meeting Margaery - to put herself on the same level as the less fortunate, such as paupers, prostitutes, and child-orphans (which, she realised, she now was). She had never, in her doing this, imagined she would be shipped off by anybody to anybody, but this was clearly not the case.

After Joffrey's murder, Sansa had narrowly escaped the jaws of death at the hands of the Lannisters, though now that seemed more preferable. Now, she was back in King's Landing, true, but she was in the hands of Ramsay Snow - not Bolton - and it was her wedding day. Once again, as she had been last time to Tyrion, she had been stripped of her worth, and the snow beneath her feet that should have felt like home now felt like sinking into hell, with every step she took towards the Godswood - to the bastard she would have to call her husband. Unlike last time, she doubted very much he cared for her, and would most definitely not keep her dignity intact, no matter how much she cried. She took a deep breath and kept her stony face on as she said the words that now she knew meant nothing to anybody - not really, judging by how many times a woman could be married off in her lifetime. She was led up into Ramsay's quarters where he looked at her expectantly - no, not even do gently, more threateningly - to take her clothes off. When she wasn't naked in an instant, he grew impatient, deciding to take things into his own hands, as he forced her onto the bed and defiled her.

Against her better judgement, she screamed and yelled and cried, flailing madly to clutch onto the furs, trying in vain to crawl away. She shut her eyes tightly and willed it to be over, trying to go somewhere or see somebody to help her cope. She didnt think of her lady mother, nor her father. she didnt see Robb, nor Arya, nor Jon, but someone elss entirely. The Hound, broad and gruff, perched on the bed beside her head, putting his coarse fingers through her hair, humming her a sweet tune. She wept hard still, but focused on him, as he finished the melody, and then he leaned in to her ear and whispered "you're going to be okay. I'll be seeing you soon, little bird." and then it was over. For that night, at least, she was saved.

Her saving grace was the Hound: the savage who had murdered so many. He wasn't the one raping her, as one might assume with his own past and his family history, but he was beside her, humming. And now he had saved her in more ways than he could ever imagine. She allowed herself to drift into sleep beside her captor, not removing his hands when they reached for her waist, but instead imagining them coarser, harder, yet much, much gentler, and she allowed the blackness to consume her waking mind.

* * *

 

It was going to be done. It would be over. Sansa had the dog in the kennel, and it was hungry. Not only was its stomach churning for food it hadn't seen in a day, but its mind was desperate for revenge. As Sansa had known her entire life, not all dogs were disgusting, violent murderers - not unless they were raised to be as such. No, dogs were loyal and brave and valient, but Ramsay did not appreciate this. He used his dogs for evil, forcing them to kill children, using them as a puppet master uses his strings to play out his scene, but the game was over now. Preceeding the triumph of the Starks with the help of the Knights of the Eerie, Sansa had ordered any man who found Ramsay to keep him alive and detained, and to let her handle him, else there would be serious consequences.

Now, thanks to her faithful servicemen, she had Ramsay in the cages, and she let loose his canine, who devoured Ramsay. He was gone now, thanks to Jon (and, though everybody hated to admit it, Littlefinger, though he had a lot of penance to do before anybody forgave him, let alone the gods). She listened to his screams and smiled, as he had done so many times eith her, and it felt good. By locking away his mutilated corpse, so did she lock the mutilated marriage, and she was free. Suddenly, a voice called out: "You did well, little bird. Turns out you dont need my protection anymore, after all."

The Hound.

She swung around, pivoting perfectly on her heels, and saw the man before her. He was older now, and sadder, but it was him, there was no doubt. His drooping hair covered half of his face as he admired something beautiful on the ground with a grin on his face, and Sansa's guard was instantly up, though she thought it improbable he was working with the Lannisters again, considering how he had abandoned the King all those years ago. She wondered what he made of her now, seeing her as a woman as opposed to a meesly child that cried for days over spilled milk.

"What are you doing here?" She implored, voice commanding, but as warm as possible for what he had done for her - both what he knew, and what he didn't.

"I heard you were planning on killing that bastard Bolton cunt," he spat on the name, shrugged, bringing his eyes up to hers, "I had to see it for myself."

Sansa let out an amused sigh, letting herself crack a smirk, "and? How do you think I did?"

He pushed off of the wall to cast a prolonged glance into the kennels where Ramsay's screams had just ceased. He smiled wider and let himself fall back, "I think," he paused dramatically, letting his eyes wander all across Sansa, "you're getting more sadistic than I ever was."

She rolled her eyes and met his gaze once more, "Oh, I think we can both agree that isn't true, but I appreciate the sentiment."

He laughed shortly, and then silence flooded over them, and if she wasn't looking straight at him, she would have suspected it was just another dream, and he had vanished as he always did, but it wasn't, and he hadn't. After a quiet moment, he pushed off of the wall once more, using his hands this time, and made his way straight to Sansa.

Part of her - her younger self - wanted to flee, but he had told her so long ago when she had bravely faced him, telling - not asking - him, that he would never hurt her, and she believed him. Both with blood on their hands and alone in the virtual catacombs, they had never been more similar, and yet they had both taken such different paths to arrive there, but none of it mattered. In a short time, he was before her, looking down in a way most would find intimidating, but she took comfort in it. She looked back up, gaze unwavering, and this difference from her past self elicited an exhale a laugh from him, and he raised her chin with one of his fingers and kissed her.

He tasted smokey, she first realised, and then she felt how cold he was. Having grown up in the wintery climate, she had almost forgotten how it affected some people, and felt a little remorseful. She broke away and looked him in the jovial eyes, switching between the left and the right, and spoke:

"You're freezing."

"Mhmm." was all his dazed mind could muster, but it was enough.

"Your hands! Here-" she took his wrists and guided his hands to the fabric of her dress beneath her fur cloak. She left his hands on her waist, letting them wander as they wished.

His fingers slipped up her sides, then around her torso to her back, and came to rest on the small of her spine. Gently, he ushered her towards him, only stopping when she willingly fell against his chest, bracing herself on his strong shoulders. Suddenly, she couldn't contain herself, turning into the giggly adolescent she had never had the chance to be.

"What is it?" he inquired, feeling self-conscious, like her reaction was entirely a joke, that his hubris had led him to believe was otherwise.

"No, it's nothing," he looked more intently at her, clearly not convinced, "well, okay. I just thought - I'm kissing you, letting your hands on me, and I don't even really know what to call you. The Hound? Ser Clegane _?_ "

He let out a roar, "I ain't no Ser, pretty bird, "he leaned in closer, "tell you what, I know what you can call me."

"What?"

"Sandor; I haven't heard a pretty maid say it in years, if ever. Gods know my mother wasn't a pretty one, and I can't recall any others." The corner of his mouth tilted up slightly.

Sansa nodded, smiling coyly back up at him, raising her eyebrows a little, "Okay, then, Sandor." She made her voice a whisper, "Sandor, Sandor, Sandor..."

**Author's Note:**

> Just something small I got inspired to write. Sorry about any issues, I wrote this on my phone. Either let me know so I can fix grammar/spelling or just ignore it. Thanks! :)


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